Wooooaaahhhhh
Got to learn to let it go.
Grief, what a horrible beast you are. At least that is what I have thought for the nearly 10 years I have had to face you. Before my Dad Steve passed away I was happily sailing through life without too many cares in the world. I had just finished the best first year of university studying Law and to be honest I was smashing it! Despite all of the odds, I was there and passing every module! I was going on beautiful holidays with beautiful people and after a long year of trying to pin me down, Ash and I became official. Things were good. I wasn’t medicated at the time (I should have been as I was always a little manic) but things were good. I don’t think anyone or anything could have prepared me for the complete and absolute devastation I was about to be faced with.
I mean is anyone ever ready for the death of someone they love? I will never get over my loss. But I must learn to let go of the darkness that surrounds it. For I fear that I am forgetting the positive, happy times I had with my Dad and my Mum. I have recently started Bereavement counselling with Cruse Bereavement. To say it has been a long time coming would be a huge understatement. Monday, 7.15pm I will shut myself away, more recently I have been going and sitting in the car just to be alone and talk freely, about my grief. I have said some fucked up things I am more than sure of it. But grief is a bizarre journey.
I have more than once admitted that my parents, there actions, or lack of, angered me. Well, more than angered they out right pissed me off and left me furious. Had Dad just stopped being so stubborn and gone to the doctors would I be telling a different story right now. If I had been there the night of the heart attack would he have listened to me more than Mum, if I had pushed harder, if I had just called the ambulance…
With Mum, she should have stopped drinking. I can’t tell you how many times we would argue, fight even, sometimes physically. Just to stop drinking, is it really that hard. Addiction followed by the loss of someone who is still here. Evil. Why did the doctors not take it seriously that she was in bed with a serious head injury, not with it at all. Why did she not listen to us when we said moving out was a bad idea, that she was being controlled and manipulated.
But I should have stopped her drinking, I should have stopped her going off with the partner. I shouldn’t have got drunk with her because it was easier to be on her level than argue with her. I should have kept her at my house when I made her come to mine, I should have never let her go back there.
I should have fought harder for both of their lives.
Wait, who am I angry at here, looks like I’m the one that could have and should have done more. But is it ever that easy? Is it ever enough? The people in that photo above are beyond happy and in love. That is how I want to remember them.
So for now, this is my letter goodbye, part 1: To My Dad.
To My Darling Dad,
I feel like it has been a lifetime since I spoke to you, or saw you. Then I remember it pretty much has been.
10 years. This is a third of my life, you have been gone from my life for 10 years.
So much has happened and changed in these 10 years. I know you’re up there all seeing and all knowing anyways, but it doesn’t hurt to ‘formally’ let you know lol.
Ash and I got married! And we have two wonderful children, your grandchildren. Caleb, who is now 5 years old and Penelope who is 5 months old. 3 amazing and exciting things have happened that I wish I could tell you about, that I wish you were here for.
I miss you so much. Sometimes it is all consuming and I don’t feel like I can escape the pain and tears. But then more recently I have been finding some peace with your death.
I’ve been having counselling with Cruse Bereavement. This was my counsellors idea and it actually feels like I am talking to you. So I guess it’s helping.
With that being said, as I write these thoughts and feelings down, I can’t help but feel some guilt for what I am about to say to you.
That I am letting go of so many of these feelings. That in a way I am saying goodbye, again; but for the final time…
(At the moment)
I am learning that grief has a way of creeping up on you, but for now I am letting this sadness settle, I am perhaps maybe saying goodbye to that.
I don’t really know. I don’t want you to think I don’t miss you. Because you are my biggest of my ‘3 wish, wishes!’
I wish I could have your warmth back. Your smile and laughter. Your kindness and happiness. Your wisdom.
I wish…
But I can’t and coming to terms with your death has been a very long battle..
I have relapsed more times than I would like to admit. More med changes than I would like and a few too many attempts on my life. Not obviously because of dealing with loosing you – you dying. But it definitely hasn’t helped.
I also need to let go of the anger. The anger towards you, Mum and myself. I’m angry in general that you had to die. That you were taken at 54 and at Christmas. Sounds so silly but Christmas is when everyone else is with their families, celebrating. Then there’s us lot – me, mourning and somewhat celebrating not Christmas but your life, but mostly, crying and missing you. I guess that’s one thing that will never get easier, Boxing Day – The day you died.
But I have to let go.
Not because I have been told I have to
Not because I feel I have to.
“It’s been 10 years, aren’t I over it now?!”
But because it is starting to feel right.
I don’t always cry ‘sad tears’ I’m starting to think about you and smiling. I’ve started finding 5p’s again and seeing robins.
I don’t always cry and sometimes, I smile.
Is this what acceptance is?
I don’t know anymore. I find I question my grief and my journey a lot. Maybe I am just putting it all to the back of my mind.
But maybe that isn’t a bad thing.
Maybe?…
Maybe settling these manic feelings and emotions is what I need. I can’t think too much about those 5 weeks of you dying in hospital. Literally in front of me. The dim lighting, the frozen touch. I just can’t do it.
And I know that’s not how I should remember you anyways.
You would adore Caleb and Penelope. Caleb knows exactly who you are, “Grandad in the sky!” He actually asked me to ask you have watched The Greatest Showman in heaven? And did you like the songs as much as he does? He often talks to me about you, always wondering about you. You were and still are so so loved and so intensely missed.
I really miss your two smells. Sometimes Ash smells like you when you had just finished work. That car oil, care fume kind of smell, when he has been working on the cars. And your going out smell; Dior Fahrenheit! It’s sweet but musky, mixed with cigarette smoke smell is you. For as long as I can remember that was your aftershave of choice. As I write this now, I am smelling your bottle of it. I can’t lie my eyes are watering, but only because in a way, I feel like I am saying goodbye again.
Like the last time I smelt the aftershave on you, when I put some on you, when you had died. Laying cold in the coffin I couldn’t let you go without you smelling your best.
But now, I am saying goodbye to more than just you, but a part of me that I lost with you too.
I wonder what you would be like now.
If your laugh still sounds the same. I wonder if you’d be grumpy with technology, not understanding Spotify, internet banking and Iphone’s. Would you be going on your holiday to Chile? Taking us to places you’d been and explored?
Would you love or hate my tattoo’s? They’ve only spread and got bigger.
Would you go to the doctor’s if you could or was this your plan, your journey, the path chosen for you all along?
Maybe you were here for 20 of my years and that was enough. Enough to teach me, along with Mum and others to be compassionate, too care and empathise. To speak up and stand my ground. To laugh at everything and always smile, even when no one else is smiling back. To rise above and do my best. To always polish my shoes before work or interviews (especially) and to know how to iron in creases in trouser. (Really helpful now Caleb is at school.)
And above all, you taught me how to love.
You taught me that love can indeed be unconditional and still just as strong when that loved one has gone.
You taught me that love is worth fighting for. Even if it fails that fight wasn’t in vain.
You taught me from a very young age to love myself.
And I promise you Dad, I am starting to show myself that unconditional love again.
Thank you for never letting me fight alone.
Thank you for always giving me and my voice a platform.
Thank you for encouraging me always and cheering me on.
Thank you for being the most genuine, kind, positive; but real person in my life.
Thank you for giving me hope.
Thank you for leaving this hole in my heart.
For without loosing you. I would never have known just how much I loved you and could love in life.
You were the first man i ever loved and trusted to love me back without condition.
Thank you for not disappointing me.
What an amazing 20 years I had with you, my Dad, My hero.
All my love, forever and always,
Boo xxx
“It is the unknown we fear when we look upon death and darkness, nothing more.”
Albus Dumbledore
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.
Music is and always will be such an important part of my life. Much of my love of music comes from listening to loads in the car with Dad and on a Sunday while ‘blitzing’ the house!
A few songs that definitely remind me of my Dad and our amazing relationship are….
Brooke Fraser – Something in the water
Annie Lennox – Shining light
Fleetwood Mac – Tusk
&
Bastille – Good Grief
Every minute of every hour, I miss you, I miss you, I miss you more.
Being Becka x
Being Becka 